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Touching the Hand of God

For this Latin American artist, poetry is a devotional act that should be shared.

As
an assistant professor of poetry, creative writing, and Spanish literature
at Miami University in Oxford, OH, Maria Auxiliadora Alvarez (AM '99,
PhD '03 Spanish,) wants her students to understand more than the
meaning of poems. She wants poems to touch her students on a deep, emotional
level so they will find parts of themselves in the words they read and
write.

At Miami, she organized an event honoring original voices in Spanish
poetry, and she put together a booklet featuring the work of students
from her class. "I'm working a lot to help students enjoy
and be comfortable in the artistic life," she says on the phone
from Oxford.

Although she is regarded today as one of the most important voices in
contemporary Latin American poetry and some of the most prestigious journals
in the field have published her work, Alvarez wasn't always confident
enough to pursue the artistic life. As the single mother of three children,
she spent 15 years doing corporate communications.

She ran her own marketing company in Venezuela from 1988 to 1996, supervising
a staff of 25 and coordinating successful campaigns for the state oil
company. Beyond her children, what happiness she found came in poetry.
She wrote at home in the evenings after working 12-hour days. Writing
poetry was something she had done since her early teens. Despite having
limited time to write, her work garnered a following in Latin America
and Spain, especially after the publication in 1985 of her first book
of poems, Cuerpo. She has since published four more acclaimed books of
poetry. Two more books of her work are in publication.

Michael Palencia-Roth, an LAS professor of comparative and world literatures
who advised Alvarez on her thesis, says a measure of the poet's
stature is her inclusion in many important anthologies, including one
collecting the work of the best poets writing in Spanish in the last
50 years. "She is one of the rising poets of Spanish-American literature," says
Palencia-Roth.

In her poetry, Alvarez emulates the work of her father, Oswaldo Alvarez
Rojas, a diplomat and renowned mystical poet who wrote about finding God.
Maria wrote her dissertation at Illinois on the relationship of contemporary
mystical poetry with the tradition that dates back centuries. A devout
Catholic, Alvarez considers writing poetry a devotional act she likens
to touching the hand of God. "Poetry asks a lot," she says. "It
is not something you can do quickly and do well. You need to give your
entire energy, everything you have, and you need to live according to
that."

Growing up, Alvarez and her seven siblings moved with her parents to
diplomatic posts assigned to her father from Brazil to Columbia to Suriname
and back to Brazil again. At 21, she married a man from Spain and moved
home to Venezuela and had three children (all ended up attending U of
I). After a divorce, she entered the world of business and found success
enough to support her children, but she yearned for artistic freedom
beyond the corporate world.

That yearning bursts through in one of her poems from this period, "My
Red Bird." Written in 1990 and later translated from Spanish and
published in Columbia University's journal, Translation. The poem
begins:

My red bird, is gone,
his fire, his flight,
the melody of his song.

Maria Auxiliadora Alvarez

The poem ends with a hopeful line:

If I warm your winter, my bird,
If dawn shined through once more,
Would you?

Maria Auxiliadora Alvarez

"In that time I wanted to feel again the love for life," Alvarez
recalls.

The red bird came for her in 1996, when she decided to sell her company
and move her family to the United States after the death of her father,
which left her sad and shaken. For a woman who had grown up in many nations,
moving to a new country was a welcome method to start a new life.

In Venezuela she had met two American professors who encouraged her to
move to the United States to earn a doctorate in Spanish literature.
Becoming a professor appealed to the former businesswoman. "It's
not a profession to be rich, but it's a profession to be rich inside
yourself," Alvarez says.

Appreciating Poetry

For Maria Auxiliadora Alvarez, poetry is a private
act that should be shared publicly. In Spain and Latin America, poetry is interwoven with the culture. In Venezuela, poems are read
aloud in public venues and poetry is published and discussed regularly
in newspapers and popular magazines. Important poets are treated as
celebrities. Alvarez says the public interest in poetry comes from
Latin American culture. "I think we are very emotional," she
says, "and we express what we feel and what we see."

In the United States, Alvarez has observed that poetry is often thought
of as an intellectual exercise. "The real approach is not the
intellectual approach, but the emotional," she says. "You
go through not only with your intelligence but your feelings."

In America, poetry is also looked at as quaint or esoteric. "Poetry
is considered something strange, unreal," she says. "But
it's just we don't give it the attention or interest it
needs."

Poetry needs to be appreciated like any other art form. "If you
go into a classical concert, if you have knowledge of music, you will
enjoy. But you have to open yourself up to the music," Alvarez
says. "It's the same with poetry. You must open yourself
up to it and feel it with your spirit."

To appreciate poetry, she advises finding a simple poem that strikes
an emotional chord. "If you had the same experience as the poet,
you will understand because you will recognize yourself," she
says.

Alvarez has found pieces of herself in the work of poets such as Rainer
Maria Rilke, Sylvia Plath, Ann Sexton, and the poets of the Beat Generation.
Reading those poets is like stepping into the comfortable home of a
friend, she says. Good poetry taps into the universal truths for all
of humanity. "The philosophy of poetry helps you discover answers
to questions you've always had inside yourself."

Encouraged by a family friend who had attended U of I, Alvarez chose
to come to the University to earn her doctorate. It was only after arriving
that she discovered Illinois had a professor in Spanish literature—Paul
Borgeson Jr.— who was also a well-known critic in Latin America.
With Borgeson as her advisor, Alvarez found the encouragement and solitude
that had escaped her in Venezuela.

After working closely with her mentor for several years, she was dismayed
to learn in 1999 that Borgeson was dying of cancer. Alvarez was also
surprised when Borgeson began sharing poetry with her because, although
he was an esteemed critic, he had never shared his poetry with anyone.
She was impressed that Borgeson was writing in Spanish, which was not
his native language. Also, the subject of the poems was his own death.

Inspired, Alvarez organized a poetry reading in May 1999 that featured
some of Borgeson's poems. Students, faculty, and Borgeson's
family gathered by candlelight in the Lucy Ellis Lounge of the Foreign
Language Building for several hours to hear poetry being read in 10 languages.
It was the first time Borgeson's children had heard his poems.
Two weeks later Borgeson died. His poems were collected in a booklet
and distributed at the funeral.

"He said to me that when he was in the hospital suffering alone, the only
thing that gave him peace was thinking of that poetry reading," Alvarez
says.

Since Borgeson's death, LAS's Department of Spanish, Italian
and Portuguese has held an annual poetry reading in his honor. Alvarez
is happy the event she started has become a tradition, and she hopes
the same will occur with a poetry reading she began at Miami. For Alvarez,
encouraging others to appreciate and express themselves through poetry
is a way to give back to those such as Borgeson who encouraged her along
the way. "I think that we need someone who believes in us," she
says.